


Spinning

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 20:05:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like his wheel, Rumpelstiltskin's world is spinning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spinning

**Author's Note:**

> *headdesks* Stop. Making. Rumpel. Woobie.

The wheel betrayed him.

She left him. She called him a coward. She walked out the door. She didn't return. 

Glass and gems were scattered underfoot, shattered. Only one of his treasures remained intact, where he left it on the table. He can't stand to look at it or think about it. She should have taken it with her, but she didn't. She didn't even take her cloak or basket. She just left as if she had never wanted to stay.

The wheel wouldn't work. 

The stool creaked under him, and he turned and turned the wheel, but it didn't work. It won't let him lose himself as he usually did. There was a monotony to the spinning, a safe, distracting emptiness, but all he could remember were her hands, her lips and her words.

The gold thread knotted and tangled between his fingers, nowhere near as smooth as it had been. His hands were shaking too much to spin, and he wrapped them around the spokes of the wheel, stopping it. 

It betrayed him.

She betrayed him.

He bowed his head, the polished wood of the spokes smooth against his brow. He wanted to break it apart, the stupid, useless machine. What did it do? What did it accomplish? All it did was create gold, and what use did he have for gold?

He could feel a tightness building under his ribs, as if metal bands were closing around his ribs, crushing them inwards. It hurt, so badly, and he clawed at his shirt, tearing it open, scrabbling at his chest, leaving bloody welts in his skin.

She lied, she lied.

How can a heart hurt so much when you don't have one?

The pain surged, growing and growing, and he had blood on his hands, his own blood, and he beat his hands against the wheel, the wheel that betrayed him, until the wood splintered and shattered. He struck it over and over, until his hands hurt as much as his chest, until there was nothing but splinters and ruin and blood.

Rumpelstiltskin sagged off the stool onto his knees and wrapped his arms around his middle, clawing at his back as if he could tear himself in two, and wept.


End file.
